


Midnight Snack

by opposablethumbs



Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Halloween, M/M, giant snails, non-sexual tentacles, oh god what is my life, this is my third time using that tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-28
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-08-08 20:26:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16436216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/opposablethumbs/pseuds/opposablethumbs
Summary: Tony spends Halloween at the Sanctum Sanctorum, learning about magic and dick demons and... some other stuff.





	Midnight Snack

**Author's Note:**

> Post 1 For the [ironstrange-advent-calendar](https://ironstrange-advent-calendar.tumblr.com/) over on Tumblr.
> 
> Beta'd by the ever-glowing [nursedarry](http://archiveofourown.org/users/NurseDarry/pseuds/NurseDarry).

It looks like Stephen has been preparing for Halloween for weeks. And not the kind of preparations Tony would normally associate with the spooky holiday: the buying of bat and cat and witch ornaments alongside a potentially lethal amount of candy. No, Stephen’s idea of getting ready for Halloween apparently involves lots of daubed glyphs, totems and - concerningly - chains. 

“Expecting trouble, I take it?” Tony asks, watching as Stephen clamps shut another of the Sanctum’s many mysterious doors with a heavy iron padlock.

“Always,” Stephen replies with a thin-lipped smile, letting the lock drop back against the tightly bound door with a clank. “But particularly tonight. Halloween is the bane of my year.”

“Oh yes,” replies Tony dryly. “Kids dressed as vampires and bobbing for apples. Truly terrifying.”

Stephen juts his chin out slightly. “Let me explain it in terms you can understand,” he says.

Tony might take offence if he had one ounce less respect for the former surgeon than he does, or if he hadn’t been known to use those words himself once or twice.

“You’ve heard of the ozone layer?” Stephen continues. He has adopted the posture of learned master, an air Tony finds curiously endearing considering his general mistrust of authority figures.

“Yes, I, Tony Stark, pioneer of green and renewable energy, am aware of the ozone layer,” he confirms.

“Do you know that the ozone layer over New York is at its thinnest on October thirty-first?”

Tony shrugs. “Currents in the atmosphere. And?”

“And the same is true of the veil that separates the realities. This sanctum was built on the convergence and acts as the last line of defence against the horrors beyond.”

Stephen turns on his heel and strides away.

“Woah, woah, woah,” Tony calls, chasing after him. “That is _not_ an explanation, that’s a grandiose statement with no logical basis.”

“Nevertheless, it is so.”

Tony blinks. “Did you just ‘nevertheless’ me?” he enquires, and sees Stephen’s lips twitch in response.

“The world you know is only one facet of existence. There are parasites that infest human souls to feed on their happiness, malevolent beings that thrive on their victims’ madness. One nasty bugger has a particular affinity for penile tissue…”

“Okay, that’s something I never needed to know.”

“It’s one of the leading causes of male impotence.”

“Well at least we know _I’m_ not infected,” Tony grumbles beside the sorcerer.

Stephen crooks an arched eyebrow at Tony. “We?”

Tony feels the blood in his cheeks. He and Stephen have been dancing around a few _unspoken_ matters for quite some time. And a slow-dance isn’t normally Tony’s thing. He’s more a stand-on-the-table-and-shake-your-ass kinda guy. Actually, if there’s a table involved, his preference is usually getting fucked into it. Loudly. Vigorously. With gusto.

Stephen is still staring at him.

“You wish,” Tony snorts.

_Smooth._

Stephen’s eyes travel obviously over Tony’s body. “Perhaps when my hands aren’t quite so full.”

“Full… of dick demons,” drawls Tony, stepping back a fraction from what suddenly seems an awfully small space between them.

“The ‘dick demons’ are small fry,” Stephen replies. “They slither their way through cracks in the dimensions all the time. Tonight I do battle against the greatest threats mankind has never known.”

“Want some company for that?” The words are out of Tony’s mouth before he can censor them.

Stephen stops, twisting on the spot to consider Tony. His eyebrow is raised and his lips barely parted. “It will almost certainly be dangerous,” he says, and that isn’t a no.

“Hey, that’s what I do.”

Stephen puts a hand to Tony’s shoulder. “You won’t be able to fight this danger,” he says. “You won’t even be able to see it, unless…” His brow crinkles, and his face falls somberly.

Tony is no stranger to pre-emptive guilt. “You’re not gonna fail, doc,” he assures. “I have faith in you.”

Stephen’s eyes soften, tracking Tony’s face. “Thank you, Stark,” he says softly, edging just a fraction closer.

It’s the movie moment. Tony knows the surge in his veins well, the urge to rock onto his toes and close the gap. There’s a pulse point in Stephen’s neck and Tony swears it’s beating faster with each passing second. It’d take less than one beat to lean in and seal the kiss. But Tony doesn’t. Of course he doesn’t. Because he’s an idiot with an IQ of two-twenty-five. Because he’s fallen so hard for this lanky streak of snark and awesome facial hair that it actually _matters_ how this goes down. But most of all, because Wong walks in right then.

“Stephen, are you finished locking up the…” Wong stops mid-sentence and narrows his eyes at the two of them, hands settling judgmentally on his hips. “No,” he says simply. “No time for that. Protect the world, then make out.”

Stephen clears his throat, easing himself back from Tony. “We’re just done here,” he says.

“Uh-huh,” Wong comments, still giving them the hairy eyeball.

Tony rubs his palms together, feeling the faint dampness of nervous perspiration. “I’m gonna pull up a stool tonight, Wong,” he says. “It’ll be good to get a feel of how you and Stephen fight for future, uh, team-ups.”

“If you don’t object,” Stephen adds.

Wong shakes his head slowly, despairingly, at the pair of them. “Do what you like. Just don’t get eaten.” He checks the padlock Stephen just fastened and then walks away.

“Eaten?” Tony asks. “So I can’t see them, but they can _eat_ me.”

Stephen shrugs, somewhat apologetically.

“Well that’s bullshit.”

The sorcerer smiles. “Welcome to the world of magic.”

****

It’s actually pretty funny at first, seeing Stephen and Wong casting spells at nothing, running about, diving and dodging, thrusting arcane weapons into what seems to be thin air. There’s an almost carnival feel to it, especially as the Sanctum now looks more than a little like a fairground House of Horror. Tony even opens the door to trick-or-treaters a couple of times, and is commended for the theatrics going on in the background.

But as the night draws on, creeping towards midnight, a tight ball of anxiety grows in his chest. Each new wave of invisible adversaries takes a greater and greater toll on the mystical defenders. Even the Cloak of Levitation has to split off to keep the tide in their favor and it’s all Tony can do to help the two humans to places to sit in the all too brief respites between battles.

“Drink this,” he says, holding a glass of water to Stephen’s parched lips as the sorcerer slouches back against an ancient armoire. 

Stephen reaches up, placing his fingers over Tony’s to steady the glass himself, guiding it to his mouth. Tony can feel the trembling of Stephen’s hands, fatigue-laced involuntary movements the former surgeon is usually so careful to hide. The intimacy of Stephen allowing him to see this weakness is not lost on Tony.

“Easy,” says Tony softly, as Stephen gulps down the water. There is a small cut on Stephen’s cheek, a faint crusting of blood blurred by sweat. A wave of vague nausea twists Tony’s stomach; a sense of impotence that has nothing to do with penile parasites. He hasn’t felt like this since Afghanistan; since before he’d put the suit on for the first time. And it’s somehow worse because it’s not him at the mercy of malevolence, but his friends. 

“Okay, I’m okay,” Stephen says when he finishes drinking. It sounds like a mantra and it’s one Tony is all-too-familiar with.

“You’re exhausted,” Tony counters.

“You should’ve seen me after seventy-two hours on-call.”

Tony sniffs. “I’d rather see you after a good night’s sleep,” he says.

Tired as he obviously is, Stephen manages a smile. “Are you offering to take me to bed, Mr. Stark?”

Heavy, rapid footfalls sound in the hallway and Wong bursts through the door. “Stephen, incoming!” he yelps, skidding to a halt. He spins on his heel and slams the door behind him.

Stephen groans as he gets to his feet. “What’ve we got? Beyonderling?”

“Worse,” Wong says. “Carcolh.”

“Eugh, I _hate_ those,” Stephen replies.

“Do I want to know?” Tony asks.

Stephen grimaces. “Imagine a snail,” he says.

“Okay,” replies Tony.

“But much larger. Ten to twelve feet, easy.”

“Yikes.”

“And hairy.”

“Hairy?”

A thump sounds in the hall. Several objects on shelves rock with the impact.

“Hairy _and_ slimey,” Wong adds, grunting as he pushes a dresser in front of the door.

“A giant, hairy, super-slimy snail,” Tony says. “Got ya.” 

The door shudders as a giant, hairy, super-slimy snail apparently bashes into it.

“So what do we do?” Tony asks.

Wong scowls at him. “ _You_ stand as far away from the door as possible,” he says, pointing at the bay window. “Stephen and I will try to kill it.”

“How do you kill a supernatural snail?” Tony says, backing away from the door to the spot Wong indicated. “Salted holy water?”

Wong tugs an axe off the wall and tosses it to Stephen. “Not quite,” he says.

The door bangs again and the chest of drawers bounces.

“Watch out!” Wong calls, leaping to one side. Stephen swings wildly, the axe buring into the floorboards.

“What the hell?” Tony cries, hopping up onto the windowsill. 

Stephen wrenches the axe free. “Tentacles,” he says. “Carcolh have long, toothy tentacles that come out of their mouths.”

“Of _course_ they do,” Tony says. 

Watching the battle is like listening to someone else’s telephone call, only a lot more violent. Tony can guess what’s happening from Stephen and Wong’s movements, but not with a degree of accuracy enough to actually help. He’s used the HUD built into his glasses to scan for _every_ type of energy, and the carcolh isn’t registering on any measurable spectrum. Even when the door shakes on its hinges and the wood splinters, his force meters sit squarely on zero. There is only effect, no cause, and that is impossible.

“Wong!” Stephen cries suddenly. Wong’s face is caught in frozen horror for a fraction of a second, and then he is hit by _something_ and hurled to the side. Tony winces at the crack and thud of Wong’s body hitting the wall, and his ragdoll slide to the floor. Tony starts forward, his first thought to give aid.

“Tony, no!” Stephen calls. He turns so their eyes meet and Tony sees fear there. “Please,” he mouths silently.

The gaze lingers for a heartbeat too long. With a yelp, Stephen is snatched up into the air, dropping the axe in surprise. Simultaneously the door loses its own battle against the unseen mass thudding against it and bursts inward, shards of shattered wood flying into the room. Tony lifts his arm to cover his face, feeling the peppering of shrapnel shredding his skin. There’s a smell in the room too, like freshly turned earth, but Tony registers that only peripherally as his senses are tuned on Stephen. The thing evidently has him by the ankle, shaking and tossing him about like he weighs nothing. The sorcerer is twisting futilely in the carcolh’s grip, swearing and casting spells into the ether. 

If Tony has managed to hold himself back from the fight until now, he no longer can. He surges forward, ducking under Stephen as the carcolh tries to use the immobilized sorcerer as a bludgeon. He snatches up the fallen axe and braces himself before the doorway. 

“Damn it, Tony,” Stephen yells, squirming fiercely. “You’ll get yourself killed!”

“Nothing new there,” Tony replies, brandishing the axe. “Tell me what to do.”

“I told you, you can’t fight what you can’t see.”

“I got that,” replies Tony. He _thinks_ he feels a change in air pressure to his left and twists away reflexively. “So teach me to see.”

Even hanging upside down Stephen manages a bitter laugh. “It takes months, years, to learn to open your third eye, Tony.”

“Well we don’t have months,” Tony snaps. This time he _definitely_ senses a change in air pressure to his right and spins away from it. “I’m a quick study, Doctor. _Trust me_.”

“Yeash!” Stephen cries.

Tony frowns. “Hey, it’s not like you’ve got a lot of options,” he says.

“It’s not that, the damned snail just... licked me.”

“Hey,” Tony says, addressing the air behind where Stephen hangs, “get your own wizard!”

“Tony, focus,” Stephen says with a short gasp. “Sense the energies in the room. The heat, the light, the sound, the souls…”

“Souls...”

“The only way this is going to work is if you believe.”

“I believe you’re suspended in mid-air, and Wong is unconscious or maybe worse,” says Tony.

“It’s not enough,” Stephen replies. “You have to be open to what others are not, to see beyond that which constrains your world. You must - ah, ah - _feel_ what your eyes don’t yet perceive.”

“Yeah, I uh… I’m not great at feelings,” Tony says, sweeping the axe blindly before him.

There’s a cough from the far side of the room. “No kidding,” says Wong weakly.

“Wong!” Tony cries. “You’re not dead.”

“Not quite,” Wong agrees. “But you had better hurry up if you don’t want Stephen to be.”

“It’s okay, he’s just hanging there,” Tony replies.

“Actually the carcolh is digesting him,” says Wong.

Tony turns back to Stephen. “It’s _what_ now?”

Stephen crinkles his nose. “It swallowed me a couple of minutes ago. I didn’t want to worry you.”

“You didn’t want to…” Tony can’t even finish the sentence. “For fuck’s sake, Stephen!”

“Concentrate!” Wong scolds, groaning as he flops onto his back.

“Okay. Right. Yes,” Tony agrees. He stares intently at where Stephen is suspended, noticing now that Stephen’s robes are no longer flapping about him but creased and folded oddly around his body. “I know you’re there, asshole. Come out so I can cut your head off.”

“Believe _harder_ ,” Wong advises from his supine position.

Tony doubles down. “Hey! You don’t get to eat this guy, dickwad. He’s my snack, not yours.”

Stephen’s chin jerks up. “Sna…”

He doesn’t get finished challenging Tony’s choice of words because he disappears, to be replaced by, well... by a giant, slimy, hairy snail with long tentacles; one of which is grossly engorged.

“Jeez, that is one ugly bastard,” Tony says. 

“Kill it,” Wong says in what Tony takes as advice and response.

Now that he _can_ see it, as much as honestly he’d rather not, Tony is able to gauge the monster’s movements and reactions. The tentacles are wildly extensible and elastic, five in total. The ones other than the tentacle bearing Stephen extend along the floor and across the walls, their tips tapping and touching along the surfaces. Disturbingly - if it wasn’t all disturbing enough - each has a humanoid mouth complete with lips and teeth at the end. Two further shorter stalks support slow-blinking eyes. The snail itself has its head thrown back to allow the tentacles to come forth, slavver and slime oozing all over its matted body.

“Okay, first things first,” Tony says. He advances on the snail. The thing turns a bulbous eyeball on him, waving it curiously. “Oh yeah big boy, I see you.”

The thing lets out an unsettling ‘mrup’ sound and turns its free tentacles on Tony. They surge and snap at him, smacking their lips like no-one’s favourite aunt diving in for a kiss. Unlike Stephen and Wong, however, Tony doesn’t try to take them on: they’re too fast, too motile. He ducks the swinging tentacles, getting inside the carcolh’s space and lunging straight for the thing’s head. His accuracy isn’t what it would be if he were able to rely on the suit for a target-lock, but he slices straight through one quivering eye-stalk. It drops to the ground with a squelch, the eyeball still rolling and blinking at him from the floor.

The rest of the carcolh lets out a howl; from the snail’s mouth and the four empty tentacles. The fifth tentacle belches loudly and regurgitates Stephen in a puddle of goo and digestive fluid.

“Stephen? You okay?” Tony calls back over his shoulder and waits just long enough to see a slimy thumbs-up before advancing again on the snail.

The carcolh, wild fear in its one remaining eye, backs away. It slurps its tentacles back into its mouth as it retreats, once more growing hazy in Tony’s vision before vanishing entirely through the wall of Stephen’s kitchen.

“And fix me a sandwich while you’re in there!” Tony calls after it. He turns back into the devastated room. 

Wong is on his hands a knees, trying to get to his feet. “Has it gone?” he asks.

“Yeah, sure,” Tony says. “I mean, it disappeared through a wall.”

Something touches Tony’s arm. He turns to see that something is Stephen. 

“It’s gone,” Stephen assures. “And it’s turned midnight, we’re safe.”

With a grateful grunt, Wong slumps back down on his face and begins, in an impressively short time, to snore. Stephen clicks his fingers and a few seconds later the Cloak of Levitation peeks through the hole where the door used to be.

“And where were you?” Stephen demands.

The animated outerwear shrugs casually.

“Come take Wong to bed,” orders Stephen.

The cloak floats over to Wong and gently lifts him, swaddling him like a babe and carrying him out of the room.

“Good man,” Tony replies. “And a good… err… fabric.”

“They’re the best,” Stephen agrees. “But don’t tell either of them I said that. Speaking of…” he drawls the latter, eyes flashing. “You did incredibly well back there. You have natural talent.”

Tony smirks, reaching up to wipe a steak of slime from Stephen’s sharp cheek. “And you took getting eaten like a champ.”

Stephen leans into the touch and Tony’s heart flutters in a way that has little to do with his underlying cardiovascular compromise. A strategic dip of Stephen’s head and his lips make contact with the bare underside of Tony’s wrist. It’s so profoundly unsubtle that Tony can’t help but laugh.

“Oh really, Doctor. That’s your play?”

Stephen winks, his voice dropping to a low purr. “I like to play dirty.”

“Mmm,” Tony agrees, letting his finger stoke slowly down to Stephen’s lips. “Well normally so do I but, frankly my dear, you’re a little too dirty right now even for me.”

Stephen doesn’t even pause, he simply walks away leaving Tony stunned behind him. He halts as he reaches the destroyed door and looks back over his shoulder.

“Are you coming?” he says.

Tony blinks. “Where?”

“The shower,” replies Stephen smugly. “I believe you offered to keep me company tonight.” He doesn’t wait for Tony’s reply, his strut confident despite the streaks of grime stiffening his robes.

Several thoughts cross Tony’s mind, but following up on the first, he pops the top button of his pants. Turning his new-found occult vision past his navel, he squints then smiles. Not a dick demon in sight. 

“Happy Halloween,” he says to himself, jogging after Stephen with a smile.


End file.
